


Need You

by Ray_Writes



Series: Tumblr Prompts [60]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Getting Back Together, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Post-Season/Series 02, like at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Oliver's solitary night in the base is interrupted by some welcome company, giving him and Laurel the chance to figure out where they stand now.
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen
Series: Tumblr Prompts [60]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/763443
Comments: 21
Kudos: 30





	Need You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greensirencanary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greensirencanary/gifts).



> Hello! Had a prompt request earlier in the week from tumblr user kasumikai (also known as greensirencanary of Lauriver discord fame). Hope you guys enjoy this little could-have-been. Thanks for reading!  
> Edit: Greensirencanary now has an AO3 account, so this fic has been properly gifted!

He was starting to hate the pre-dawn hours. Just after dark, he was always busy, always had a voice in his ear, his teammates never too far away if the need arose for their assistance. Roy would start venturing out into the field with him officially soon, once Oliver had managed to get all the pieces for his suit together and assembled.

But sometime in the middle of the night, energy lagged. Yawns were heard on the comms and mumbled comments about work in the morning. Everyone went home. Except for him.

With his finances a wreck, Oliver had given up the old manor. There was little point to him keeping it, he had reasoned with himself; he didn’t have the money, it was more efficient for him to operate out of the base full-time, and all that space for just one person was frankly ridiculous.

So he remained in the base overnight, the solitary occupant, and tried to find sleep. It didn’t come as often as it should. Oliver knew it wasn’t from any external source. He had learned over his years away to grab sleep whenever he could no matter how uncomfortable the place. But the quiet hours between the mission and daylight were when he missed his family. Thea, he feared, was never coming back, and his mother was gone completely from this world.

He was home, and yet somehow more homesick than ever. It wasn’t something he could really expect the others to understand. Maybe John, but John had a baby on the way. He didn’t need to be burdened with Oliver’s various issues at the moment. Lord knew he’d put in enough time.

On this particular sleepless night, Oliver found himself debating between remaining prone on the cot or getting up and tiring himself out with a quick target practice drill when the door upstairs opened. He tensed, sitting up, but almost immediately relaxed at the sight of the person who poked the head cautiously into the space.

“Laurel?”

Her eyes found him in the near-dark, and he stood to bring up the lights. When he did, he couldn’t help but notice the shine of it on her hair. She’d put new highlights in recently, and somehow it seemed to brighten the whole room.

“I had a feeling I might still find you here,” she remarked, a grin tugging at her lips as she came down the steps. She smiled more now than she had been when he’d first come back after the Undertaking. He was thankful every day for that. “At least I was hoping you’d be. It’s a shorter commute than twenty miles.”

Oliver nodded in acknowledgment of that, then asked, “Was there something you needed? From the Arrow?” He added when she didn’t immediately answer.

“Um, no, but thanks. I just… couldn’t really sleep.”

Oliver looked down, a small smile coming to his face. How many nights at the manor when Laurel had stayed the night started with her slipping into his room saying those exact words? A warmth seemed to settle somewhere in his gut, comforting in its familiarity.

“Neither could I.”

She didn’t seem surprised to hear it. Probably she had already guessed as much. After all, it was why she had come here seeking him out. Part of him liked that she had, the part of him that that he didn’t try to examine too closely for fear of what it meant. What it still meant, even now.

“How’s your father?” He asked.

She sighed. “Still no change. They think he just needs time. I hope… no, I _know_ he’s going to pull through. I don’t want to think about what happens if he doesn’t.”

Oliver didn’t want to, either. Laurel had suffered enough losses, and he knew what it was like to lose or feel cut off from all your family.

“I’m sure he’ll pull through,” Oliver told her, reaching to squeeze her arm in comfort. “Quentin’s strong. You and Sara both take after him that way.”

The feel of leather under his fingers had him realizing he recognized the jacket she wore. Laurel must have noticed his gaze on it, for she said, “Sara gave it to me before she went back.”

“It suits you,” he said before he could think better of it. To his relief, Laurel only smiled and glanced down, almost shy. Oliver licked his lips.

It was hard to know where they stood now. Laurel knowing, being here in the base with him, was still so new. He half-expected her to be a hallucination of his, if a welcome one.

There were other things she had to know, too, now. That she had been the woman Slade had singled out for his revenge over all others; that Oliver had used an underhanded trick to place Felicity in a position to catch his former friend unawares; that had Slade realized even a _second_ earlier than he had, Oliver might have truly lost everything that night.

So he blinked in surprise when Laurel commented, “You must really miss her.”

“Sara?” At her nod, he answered, “Of course. Not as much as you or your father. But it’s been an adjustment in the field, yeah.”

“And in your personal life?” She said, looking at him with a quirked eyebrow.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Oliver drew in a breath, turning out a little and leaning his weight on the edge of a table. He had had time to think about things regarding his relationship with Sara, but no one to really verbalize them to until this moment. Given the nature of things concerning himself and the Lance sisters, maybe this wasn’t the best idea. But Laurel tended to ask for forthrightness these days, and he didn’t really want to return to a life of hiding things from her now that it was all practically out in the open.

“I suppose I miss… miss being in a relationship. But Sara had the right of things when she ended it. I don’t really think I helped her to get out of the life she was forced into by the League.” If anything, he and his enemies had forced her right back into it, even if he suspected Sara was also using the League as a comfort zone of sorts, odd as it might seem to anyone else.

“I wanted it to work because after everything that I ruined, before the island, on the island, I guess I thought… it had to amount to something, didn’t it? But life isn’t like that. Things don’t happen for a reason, they happen because of the choices we make. And I can never seem to make the choice to just be alone, no matter how much I deserve it.”

“No one deserves to be alone, Ollie,” Laurel said, stepping closer to him. “Trust me, I tried going it alone last year, and… I don’t think I have to tell you how much I regret that.”

“You’re not alone anymore,” Oliver murmured, shifting to face her. “You can always call me.”

Laurel nodded. “I know that, now. And I know why you felt like you had to go. I wish—” But she stopped there, glancing away.

Oliver frowned. “Wish what?”

Laurel remained looking away from him as she answered, “If I’d known then, I don’t think I would have pushed you away when you came home.”

Oliver’s mouth fell open, too many feelings battling for control for him to find words. Shock, regret, even hope dared to rise in him.

“And I really should stop doing things like this,” she said, backing away and bringing her hand to her forehead. “After all this time, I should know better. I don’t know why I can’t let it go.”

“Laurel,” he said, fear gripping his heart. He couldn’t let her go now. He didn’t care what he’d said before; Oliver never wanted to watch her walk away again.

“Sara told me you needed me, and I guess I just turned it into something more in my—”

She didn’t finish, couldn’t finish, because Oliver had taken her face in his hands and his lips covered her words. He had no idea how this moment or this night might end, but he didn’t want her to think she was alone in this; that he felt the pull to her just as strongly as she felt it to him.

Oliver broke the kiss just for a moment, just to look in her eyes and give her a chance to stop this if she needed to. “I do need you.” _Always and forever,_ he vowed in his mind.

He couldn’t hold himself back any longer, though he didn’t need to because Laurel surged upward to meet him in a kiss that seemed to push all of the hurt and confusion and exhaustion of the last year into him, teeth catching his bottom lip and pulling hard enough he knew his lips would be swollen but he didn’t feel the pain. He was too caught up in the wild, unbridled passion of Laurel’s headfirst dive back into love with him, too busy pouring everything he had wanted to say but hadn’t into the press of their mouths as well. There wasn’t time to think, and they didn’t have to.

In this in-between time, not quite night and not yet dawn, all they needed was each other. That was enough.


End file.
